Dan Attrell

[Thomas Taylor] The Eleusinian Mysteries (Part 2)

This is the second part of one 18th/19th century Platonist's account of what the mysteries imparted at Eleusis were really all about. No ergot theory here, that's for sure.

(For the MP3 file which combines both parts together, see the post for Part 1)

[Thomas Taylor] The Eleusinian Mysteries (part 1)

This is one 18th/19th century Platonist's account of what the mysteries imparted at Eleusis were really all about. No ergot theory here, that's for sure.

A Tale of Two Sorcerer's Apprentices

A Tale of Two Sorcerers’ Apprentices drawn from Lucian of Samosata’s Philopseudes (2nd century AD) and William Henderson’s “Notes on the Folk Lore of the Northern Counties of England and the Borders” (1866).

[Pico della Mirandola] On Being and Unity (1491)

Translated by Victor Michael Hamm (1943)

Text available here (see especially explanatory notes): http://www.esotericarchives.com/pico/beinguni.htm

This is the only surviving section of Pico’s planned magnum opus “The Harmony” or “Concord of Plato and Aristotle,” a work that stands u...

[Pico della Mirandola] 72 Cabalistic Conclusions (1486)

Here are the concluding 72 Theses of Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola’s “900 Conclusiones” in which he attempted to highlight the merits of Cabala as he understood it (i.e., in its purely Christian interpretation) in preparation for a debate before the Pope at Rome in 1486. A small handful of Pico’s theses were deemed heretical before he was allowed to hold the public debate, and he was pr...

[Pico della Mirandola] Magical and Orphic Conclusions (1486)

Here are the 'Magical and Orphic' Theses from Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola’s “900 Conclusiones” in which he attempted to demonstrate the merits of magic as he understood it (i.e., as the summit of all natural science) in preparation for a debate before the Pope at Rome in 1486. A small handful of Pico’s theses were deemed heretical before he was allowed to hold this public debate, and ...

[Pico della Mirandola] Oration (1486)

[Dan Attrell] Honoring the Outermost (Saturn, Ficino, and Astral Magic)

[Picatrix] The Ritual of Perfect Nature

[Moses Maimonides] Selections from the Guide for the Perplexed, On the Sabians and their Rituals (3.29-30)

[Moses Maimonides] Selections from the Guide for the Perplexed, On Divine Names (1.61-64)

[Moses Maimonides] Selections from the Guide for the Perplexed (1.1, 3.51)

[Pseudo-Aristotle] The Secret of Secrets (Part 2)

[Pseudo-Aristotle] The Secret of Secrets (Part 1)

[Pseudo-Dionysius] On The Heavenly Hierarchy

[Pseudo-Dionysius] Mystical Theology

[William Wynn Wescott, trans.] Sepher Yetzirah

[Sextus the Pythagorean] The Sentences of Sextus the Pythagorean

[Philolaus] The Golden Verses of Pythagoras

[St. Augustine] City of God (Book IX) - On Demons

[Proclus] On the Hieratic Art

[Iamblichus] On the Mysteries - On Nativities and Guardian Daimones

[Iamblichus] On the Mysteries - Eudaimonia, or True Success

[Porphyry] On the Cave of the Nymphs

[Porphyry] Letter to the Egyptian Prophet Anebo

[Porphyry] The Life of Pythagoras

[Porphyry] The Life of Plotinus

[Plotinus] Ennead 4.8 - The Soul's Descent Into the Body

[Thomas Taylor, trans.] The Chaldean Oracles

[Apuleius] On the God of Socrates

De Deo Socratis (On the God of Socrates) is an ancient Latin work on the existence and nature of “daimons” (spirits) which were thought to be the intermediaries between gods and humans. This treatise was attacked in the polemical writings of Augustine of Hippo, and as such played a major role in the Medieval Latin West’s perceptions about the links between ‘paganism’ and ‘demonology...